What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
Star Wars is on the following AFI lists:
The Original Top 100 (#15)
100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains (Han Solo is the #14 hero; Obi-Wan Kenobi is the #37 hero)
100 Movie Quotes: (#8 - Various, including Han Solo: "May the Force be with you.")
25 Film Scores (#1)
100 Most Inspiring Movies (#39)
The Revised Top 100 (#13)
10 Top 10's (#2 Scifi)
Ok, I'm not going to lie. Star Wars is one of my three all-time favorite movies (the other two are the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi). I still love these films and more than Lord of the Rings (my second favorite three). I was born shortly after this film's original release; I have not known a life without this movie. If I've seen The Wizard of Oz 90 bajillion times, I've seen Star Wars 900 bajillion times. As has most people Generation X and older, and new fans crop up everyday.
I'm not going to bother summarizing plot here. That's just doing an injustice to the magic that is Star Wars, made back when George Lucas was a young, ambitious filmmaker and before he became a one-note Sally poster-child of recycled goods and filmmaking mediocrity. If you have never seen this movie, my jaw is on the floor. I am agape, aghast, agog! No movie in film history has influenced the pop culture lexicon and mass merchandising frenzies of today more than Star Wars. I don't think there is even a question as to why this film pops up on the American Film Institute lists of great American movies. This is truly one of THE great American movies. If I had my way, it'd be top 10 at least, but I haven't seen all of the top 10 movies (original or revised), so you don't have to take my word for it (Reading Rainbow....).
I also think it's a masterpiece. It's got EVERYTHING, and it's put together well in a fast-paced story that sets the stage for something epically operatic in scope. Nothing had been seen on screen like it, and I yearn for a widescreen TV just so I can thrill to the opening shot of a star destroyer filling the screen. It singlehandedly redefined the term "blockbuster." The soundtrack alone is amazing - which is why John Williams (my hero) gets top honors on the film scores list. So, Luke Skywalker whines a little about having to go into Tashi station to pick up some power converters. So, the special effects pre-special edition were a little limited - I mean, they didn't have CGI back then and had to be creative on a conservative budget, since Lucas had to schlepp the movie around until 20th Century Fox finally gave it the green light. So, Princess Leia has cinnebons on her head, there's a walking carpet, and prissy comic relief robots. Oh, and because Lucas wrote the screenplay for the first movie, the dialogue is a little more awkward than tin he sequels, when screenwriting was assigned to more capable pencils.
Star Wars is still a riproaring good time, and whatever very miniscule flaws it has (it's still a 10 to me), it makes up in the bits of perfection, like casting Alec Guinness as Obi-wan Kenobi, that make it so unique. Naturally, I own this movie in about five different versions, and I pull one of them out once a year or so just for that comfort/security blanket factor and also to make sure my memorization of the film is still in tact. I can't convince a stubborn viewer who refuses to watch it "based on the hype" to actually give it a go, but I can say that this is one of the bestest movies in the whole wide world, and anyone who chooses not to watch it is simply missing out.